On October 31st, Whitney Young’s Academic Center (WYAC) Boys and Girls cross country teams won the city championships. Spearheaded by Alex Burr’s electric 9:48 city-best 2 mile time and Rory Aspin and Stella Ljung’s top 3 finishes, the Lady Dolphins took the city championship with a near-perfect 20 team points.

The boy’s race was a little closer, but strong top-10 performances by Enrique Vargas and Thomas Stanton paved the way for another Dolphin victory. Their 36 team points was a whopping 117 ahead of the second place team. “It’s amazing,” Stanton remarked, “As an eighth grader, it’s an exhilarating feeling.”

For six straight years, WYAC boys and girls cross country has never lost a city championship, establishing an unparalleled brand of distance running dominance under the direction of coach Alan Edwards. The Boys team has won 3 state championships in the past 5 years, and the girls team placed 8th at the state meet this year, the highest placement in their program’s short history. Things are trending upwards. Stanton observed, “When we go to a meet, everyone thinks ‘Whitney Young is doing that? We should probably do it, too.’ It’s such a cool feeling.”

The success of the Academic Center Cross Country teams have translated into a powerful feeder program for Whitney Young’s high school cross-country team. Four of the seven athletes who toed the line for the high school boy’s recent 8th place state finish were WYAC runners. “Our continued success has been directly correlated to the AC program,” WY boys cross country coach Billy Poole-Harris said, “What coach Edwards has done is develop runners early on, and as they enter our program they have an idea of how competition works and what their strengths are as runners.”